RIYADH — Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) said on Thursday it had signed a SR9.75 billion ($2.6 billion) bridge syndicated loan.

Ziyad Al-Shiha, CEO of the company, said that the unsecured debt facility, with a one-year maturity, would be used for general corporate purposes and to back the company’s capital expenditure program in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and National Transformation Program of 2020.

SEC, the largest public utility company in the Mideast and North Africa region, signed on Thursday an agreement with a group of eight international banks including Citibank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, Mizuho Bank, Natixis, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Standard Chartered Bank. The same group of banks provided in August last year a $1.75 billion five-year bullet loan to the company to support its capital expenditure plans.

Al-Shiha said that there was a tremendous response from the international banks to finance SEC and this shows their confidence in the Kingdom’s public utility firm, which has assets worth a total of SR446 billion.